Business Excellence Awards Application
Navy wins silver in Business Excellence Awards!
Media Release: October 2006
New Zealand Business Excellence Award winners for 2006 announced - Mike Watson, Chief Executive of the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation (NZBEF), is pleased to announce the 2006 winners of the New Zealand Business Excellence Awards.
Mike Watson said, “This year we have some tremendous results, with the Royal New Zealand Navy achieving a silver level award with the highest score recorded in New Zealand since 1995. Additionally Hutt City Council became only the second New Zealand local government authority to achieve a silver level award with manufacturing company Metso Minerals, National contracting company City Care and executive recruitment firm Kerridge & Partners all receiving bronze level Awards.”
Full list of results:
- Royal New Zealand Navy – Silver Award
- Hutt City Council – Silver Award
- Metso Minerals - Bronze Award
- City Care - Bronze Award
- Kerridge & Partners – Bronze Award
“Many organisations aspire to be world class, but do not have a sense of what this means. The US Baldrige criteria, upon which the NZ Business Excellence Awards are based, is an internationally recognised and respected business model based on the common elements found in high performing organisations around the globe. The model is updated annually and unlike other “total quality management” models it is not a compliance framework, but rather a means of guiding continuous improvement and improving organisational performance” said Watson.
Watson added, “While not perhaps as well known in the business world as they should be, the National Business Excellence Awards are the most prestigious in NZ because they are fully aligned to the US Baldrige framework which is the only internationally calibrated, organisation wide business excellence framework available anywhere in the world. A New Zealand company who excels in these awards can genuinely compare themselves with world best practice.”
Watson went on, “Benchmarking yourself against the best in the world is an important step for New Zealand businesses. In our view, not enough NZ organisations embrace the pursuit of excellence as an integral part of their Board and Management agenda. While the desire is there, the demands of day-to-day business operations mean that the necessary time to measure performance against International benchmarks is not available. To be excellent in global terms you have to make time.” “One of the pleasing things about this years Award winners is that they have all made that commitment to performance excellence, and are all reaping the rewards”, Watson concluded.
The Royal New Zealand Navy - The award this year of the New Zealand Business Excellence Awards - Silver Award to the RNZN indicates that the Navy is making progress towards its Vision to be the best small-nation Navy in the world (kia mau mana motuhake e te taua moana o te ao). “This Vision provides a headmark and is an important guide for the future course for the Navy”, said Chief of Navy Rear Admiral David Ledson. “It clearly identifies that our aspirations will be achieved in a ‘Navy’ context and not in just an ‘organisational one”’ he said. He added that “while there are many similarities between us and other organisations, there are also important differences and we can’t afford to lose sight of these.”
A team of evaluators, from the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation, spent three days speaking to a cross section of Navy personnel and viewing the Navy at work. As a result of their assessment, the Navy was scored at 603 points out of a possible 1000. To put this into context, a score of 700 or more would recognise the RNZN as a “World Class” operation, a status that is Internationally recognised and respected. In two previous assessments in 2001 and 2003 the Navy achieved 365 and 440 points respectively.
Hutt City Council - Hutt City Council Chief Executive Rik Hart says he and his staff are delighted to achieve their new ranking, “It is really a very significant achievement for us. We did not submit for the Awards last year so we could do the hard work necessary to raise the standard of our operation from Bronze to potential Silver. “We now have the work ahead of us to get to the top Gold Level, (700 points or more ). Clearly that will be very hard, but I believe we have the people here in HCC to achieve the very highest, right up there as a world class organisation.” Hart added, “We don’t just present a rule book and ask staff to live up to it. A huge part of making progress in the Business Excellence Awards is staff suggesting and implementing the improvements themselves. We put high store on that and it becomes very competitive,” he says.
Metso Minerals - “This is excellent news and reflects well on everyone in the company,” said Keith Cooke, Metso Minerals Business Manager. “It is comforting to know we have made much progress since our last application. By going through the process of submitting a New Zealand Business Excellence Award application in 2001, we very quickly saw the value of this framework in tying together previously separate activities and initiatives,”
City Care - Denise Bowen, City Care’s Business Processes Manager, says, “We adopted the Performance Excellence Model for its holistic approach to business success. The structure provides us with a clear path to follow, so we can see how we are progressing in those business areas that are harder to measure yet are fundamentally important to our success. We can have the best systems in the world, but in order to be successful we need to be getting the business results as well.”
Kerridge & Partners - Peter Kerridge, Director of Kerridge & Partners says that he is delighted with the NZBEF Award as the executive search business has always adhered to a philosophy of leadership, excellence and best practice, “Our business has put a lot of investment into developing various strategies for performance excellence as a benchmark for achieving international standards for its clients. Perhaps most significantly, surveys show that 100 percent of our customers say they would use us again and also refer us to others, an achievement the team are truly proud of.”
About the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation
www.nzbef.org.nz
The New Zealand Business Excellence Awards are administered by the NZBEF. Established in 1992, NZBEF is a not-for-profit charitable trust, which was set up by private and public enterprise to help improve the overall performance of New Zealand organisations. The Foundation exists to assist New Zealand organisations improve their performance and capabilities by utilising an internationally recognised and respected best practice business framework also known as the Criteria for Performance Excellence and by offering support, training, self assessments and networking with like-minded managers.
The current NZBEF membership spans academia, government, small, medium and large companies, associate members and not-for-profit organisations from all over New Zealand. When you become a Foundation member your organisation will gain access to valuable networks, learning environments and support while the Foundation will assist you to develop best business practices within your organisation.
Board - Kevin Riley is the Chairman of the NZ Business Excellence Foundation and is the founder of Person2Person a customer relationship management business, and the former Managing Director of Telecom Directories, the publisher of the White and Yellow Pages, one of only two organisations in New Zealand who have achieved World Class. He is also a Director and Deputy Chairman of Workforce Auckland an organisation which creates employment opportunities for people with disabilities and has been Chief Operating Officer of Sky City, Chief Executive of Communicado and works as a Consultant and Mentor assisting with strategic planning, business excellence implementation and governance. Mike Watson is currently the Chief Executive Officer of the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation. The Foundation is recognised as the national leader in developing, promoting and recognising organisational excellence and works with many of the largest Corporates in NZ providing business assessment and consulting services that support their performance improvement efforts.
Previously Group Strategic Development manager for the Royal & SunAlliance Insurance Group, Mike has extensive consulting experience in Organisational assessment, Strategic & Operational Planning, Business Process Re-engineering, Performance Management, Customer Relationship Management and Project Management. Mike is a CEO mentor and has a Post Graduate Diploma in Quality Management a Diploma in Business Excellence and a Diploma in Financial Services. Mike is a Fellow of the NZ Institute of Management and a Senior Associate of the Australian & NZ Institute of Insurance and Finance. Dr Jan White took over the ACC Chief Executive role at the end of October 2005 having previously been the Chief Executive of the Waikato DHB. Dr White is medically trained but has worked in medical and general management for over 20 years in both Australia and New Zealand.
Helen Robinson was appointed Microsoft New Zealand’s Managing Director in May 2006, the latest milestone in a twenty-year career in the technology sector. Throughout her career, Robinson has established a reputation as a successful business leader of companies on both sides of the Tasman, most recently at Pivotal Corporation helping mid-sized enterprises achieve meaningful increases in revenues, margins and customer loyalty. Robinson is fully in tune with the challenges businesses face today, and how to balance the importance of strategic thinking whilst striving for operational excellence. A member of various business groups including the New Zealand Business Roundtable, and the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, she is a board member of the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation and Patron to the Business Mentors New Zealand underlining hers and Microsoft’s commitment to education and industry development initiatives.
Believing in improving the use of digital technology at work and at play, Robinson balances her career with time spent with family, keeping fit and entertaining friends. Jo Brosnahan is the Chair of Leadership NZ and a consultant in leadership and strategy. She is a Harkness Fellow, a Fellow of NZIM and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport. She is also a director of Landcare Research and a board member of various organisations, including the Asia NZ foundation and the NZ Business Excellence Foundation. In 2003, while Jo was CEO of the Auckland Regional Council, the Council was awarded a Silver Achievement Award.
Roger Bell, Chief Executive – Vero Insurance New Zealand Limited. Roger is responsible for the strategy and operational delivery of all general insurance operations in New Zealand. These operations include the strong Vero and AMP intermediary businesses and a number of successful niche specialists. Roger sits on the Promina Executive Board and is Chairman of a number of the Company’s Boards such as AA Insurance, Axiom, Vero Liability, Autosure and others.
Rear Admiral David Ledson was born in Reefton, New Zealand on 13 January 1951. He joined the Royal New Zealand Navy as a Cadet Midshipman in January 1967 and underwent his initial training at the Royal Australian Naval College, Jervis Bay. From 1969 to 1971 Rear Admiral Ledson studied at Auckland University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History. He was then posted to HMNZS TARANAKI for sea training prior to going to the United Kingdom for operations courses. In July 1992 Rear Admiral Ledson was appointed as Chief of Naval Development on the staff of the Chief of Naval Staff. Between July 1994 and June 1995 Rear Admiral Ledson was posted to the United States Naval War College, Rhode Island. On his return to New Zealand he was appointed Director of Resource Policy with the Chief of Defence Force.
In February 1998 Rear Admiral Ledson was posted as Captain Fleet Support on the staff of the Maritime Commander in Auckland. On 1 July 2001 with the establishment of Headquarters Joint Forces New Zealand, Rear Admiral Ledson assumed the position of Maritime Component Commander at that Headquarters. He took up his current position as Chief of Navy and was promoted Rear Admiral on 8 April 2004. Rear Admiral Ledson is married to Barbara (Devery) and they live in Wellington.
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